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			<h1>They&apos;re closed all week!</h1>
			<p>Day 01563: <time>Monday, 2019 June 17</time></p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/06/17.jpg" alt="A snake heading off the path" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<p>
		This morning as I was getting ready to head to the university, I realised how I could make the renewal node a levelled experience, where higher apple sapling elemental levels would be beneficial to the player.
		Simply put, the renewal node can act somewhat like a furnace.
		It takes time to convert ingredients.
		However, there are two key differences between the furnace and the renewal node.
		Firstly, the renewal node accepts multiple ingredients, and their arrangement determines the output, similar to the regular crafting grid.
		Secondly, the renewal node doesn&apos;t require a fuel.
		Instead, it&apos;s just powered by elemental magic, so the higher your level, the faster it works.
		Recipes will be set to require some high counter value in order to finish processing, and every second or so, your level will be added to the counter value.
		That means, of course, that if you&apos;ve never mined an entire stack of saplings before, the renewal node won&apos;t do anything for you.
		You just won&apos;t have any magic to power it with.
		Additionally, the counter will have the necessary counter value removed from the counter when it finishes processing, as opposed to simply setting the counter to zero.
		This means that at high levels, crafting multiple of an item can be much faster, and theoretically, it might take a single second to process the whole stacks of input.
	</p>
	<p>
		The name <code>elemental</code> doesn&apos;t really fit the mod now though.
		In fact, I&apos;d argue this isn&apos;t even the mod I started work on.
		It&apos;s an entirely new one, and needs a more-fitting name.
		For now, I&apos;m going with <code>modname_tba</code>, but I might come up with something better before release.
		Besides, I&apos;d prefer to save the <code>elemental</code> name.
		It sounds like there are plans for the Minetest engine to one day allow specifying entire sets of textures based on <code>param2</code> as opposed to only specifying colouration of a shared texture.
		Last I heard, no one was working on that, so it&apos;s going to be a long way off, but if it ever happens, the <code>elemental</code> mod would do very well with it.
		It&apos;d pretty much be what I&apos;ve been working on before, but with separate textures, allowing for a better experience than what <code>elemental</code> can currently provide.
	</p>
	<p>
		Make no mistake though; <code>modname_tba</code> isn&apos;t a declaration that the mod&apos;s name is to be later revealed.
		That&apos;s the the mod&apos;s actual name.
		Once the mod has been released under a specific name, the name can&apos;t be changed without breaking compatibility with existing worlds, as a mod&apos;s storage file is found by the engine based on the mod&apos;s name.
		Changing the mod&apos;s name, from the mod&apos;s perspective, completely erases any stored data.
		And even the first release will have data to store to make the checkpoints function properly.
		The mod&apos;s nodes don&apos;t seem to fit a theme besides that they&apos;re all powered by <code>minestats</code> though, and I couldn&apos;t come up with a fitting name for a mod that&apos;d contain such nodes.
		So instead, I&apos;m going with the light-hearted and self-mocking name, <code>modname_tba</code> to show that the mod doesn&apos;t take itself too seriously.
	</p>
	<p>
		So now, I have the ideas I need to get started, when time allows.
		I still need to come up with designs and work out a few kinks in planning the functionality, but otherwise, things are ready to actually go somewhere this time.
		Also, I think I&apos;ll start back in Minetest Game 0.4.0 after all.
		It makes more sense to start at the beginning (the Minetest 0.3.* line and prior didn&apos;t have a modding <abbr title="application programming interface">API</abbr>, so as far as modding is concerned, that period came <strong>*before*</strong> the beginning), considering the need to find recipes for various items that need to be made renewable.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary intake</h2>
	<p>
		For breakfast and lunch, I pretty much just had breadsticks I brought home from work last night.
		I knew I wouldn&apos;t have time to find breakfast this morning, so I wanted something easy.
		The breadsticks weren&apos;t great though.
		They had no butter or toppings of any kind on them.
		I&apos;m able to eat our butter, as it&apos;s soy butter, but decided to leave the breadsticks dry.
		I guess that was a bad idea.
	</p>
	<p>
		Yesterday, I planned tonight&apos;s dinner to be a veggie patty sandwich.
		Instead, I ended up making a peanut butter an jelly sandwich.
		I just didn&apos;t want to bother cooking today.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Shyguy">
	<h2>Professor Shyguy</h2>
	<p>
		Professor Shyguy&apos;s doing cover songs now to fulfil his crowdfunding promises.
		SO I sent him a copy of <a href="https://lorenzosmusic.bandcamp.com/album/lorenzos-music-ep">Lorenzo&apos;s Music EP</a> and asked him to cover I&apos;m Not A Fool.
		I&apos;m interested to hear how that comes out.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;d narrowed down what song I wanted covered months ago to two options, but one of them&apos;s by an artist that no longer uses free culture licensing, so that made the decision easy.
		It&apos;s such a shame they&apos;ve left the free culture community.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="earwig">
	<h2>Earwig</h2>
	<p>
		I forgot to put away the sandwich box I used for dinner last night.
		I washed it out at work, but left it in my backpack overnight instead of letting it dry on the dish rack.
		When I opened it this morning to put it on the rack, I found an earwig had wedged itself in the seal.
		Ew!
		Why was it in there?
		There wasn&apos;t any food left.
		I&apos;d washed it out really well.
		Was it seeking the moisture or something?
		And how had it gotten into my home?
		Did it fall off a tree or something on my way home and end up in my backpack with the sandwich box?
	</p>
</section>
<section id="voice">
	<h2>Vocal lessons</h2>
	<p>
		As I traversed university grounds, I noticed a lot of people in graduation gowns.
		Their graduation ceremony was probably today.
		I didn&apos;t think much of it beyond that.
		When I got to the clinic though, I found that it&apos;s closed for the week.
		Seriously?
		So I&apos;ve got to wait a full second week to talk to these people again, seeing as they didn&apos;t contact me during the first week like they said they would.
	</p>
	<p>
		Of course the clinic would be closed for graduation though.
		There&apos;s no students there to run it!
		That means that by the time the clinic opens, the new term will have begun.
		The term beginning is a prerequisite for its opening.
		By the time the clinic opens, it&apos;ll be too late for me.
		I&apos;ll still try again next week, I suppose, but at this point, it&apos;ll pretty much be in vain.
		At least maybe I can get them to actually communicate what&apos;s going on though, so I can get in in time for the autumn term.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="snake">
	<h2>Snake</h2>
	<p>
		On the way home, I encountered another large snake on the path.
		I nearly ran over the thing on my bike!
		Well, it was large compared to the size of snake I usually see.
		We only seem to have pretty small snakes around here, and this was no exception.
		It was probably sunning itself or something, though the area was pretty shady.
		It probably beat trying to sun itself on a brighter part of the path though, with how hot the pavement can get.
	</p>
	<p>
		I dismounted to get a photo, but unlike the last one, this one started to slowly flee.
		Ever so slowly.
		It wasn&apos;t even trying, really.
		If it&apos;d stayed in place, I would have just snapped some photos, marvelled over the thing a bit, and left it be, but since it started leaving once it noticed me, I decided to catch it.
		I haven&apos;t caught a snake in a long while.
		The thing started hissing at me.
		I&apos;ve never had a garter snake hiss at me!
		Do garter snakes even hiss?
		The safest option was to just put the thing down right away, in case I&apos;d misidentified it.
		I know garter snakes are harmless, but maybe this thing wasn&apos;t.
		As I continued home, I thought about how snakes ostensibly learn like the rest of us, so reinforcing the behaviour of warning before it strikes and giving us a chance to avoid conflict seems like a plus as well.
		I wasn&apos;t sure whether the snake was bluffing or not, but if it wasn&apos;t, I figured it should be rewarded for the warning by being let go free right away.
	</p>
	<p>
		At home, I did some research to see if garter snakes do indeed hiss.
		I couldn&apos;t find an answer one way or another, though I did find a question/answer site page <a href="https://ask.extension.org/questions/394555">mentioning in passing how garter snakes tend to act when they feel threatened</a>, and it mentioned nothing about hissing.
		Another article I found was on <a href="https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3273">identifying North American snakes and assessing their threat level</a>.
		The long and short of it is that aside from the several species of rattlesnake, which can be distinguished by the rattles on their tails, there are only three species of dangerous snake here.
		There&apos;s the copperhead, the water moccasin, and the coral snake, all of which look nothing like the rattleless specimen I encountered.
		So I was in no actual danger.
		I think I did misidentify the snake though.
		It might have been a gopher snake.
		Also, I think I&apos;ve been mistaking these gopher snakes as a variety of garter snake my entire life.
		Oops.
		Thank Squiddy my mistake didn&apos;t put me in any danger all these years.
		This time.
		The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituophis#Modified_epiglottis">Wikipedia article on gopher snakes</a> also mentions that gopher snakes are known for their hissing, further leading me to believe this is what I&apos;d encountered.
		I think that snake I saw last month was a gopher snake too, though I left that one alone, so it didn&apos;t end up hissing at me.
	</p>
	<p>
		I also learned that <a href="https://livingdigitally.net/2011/05/31/two-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-garter-snakes/">garter snakes are actually mildly venomous, and have long, sharp teeth at the backs of their mouths</a>.
		The teeth don&apos;t inject the venom, which is instead present in the saliva.
		It gets in wounds caused by the teeth, but to humans, the venom is incredibly mild and, at worst, causes light swelling and/or some minor itching.
		So garter snakes are actually venomous, which I never knew, but they&apos;re still not exactly dangerous to humans.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="battery">
	<h2>Battery</h2>
	<p>
		The mobile battery didn&apos;t arrive in the mail today, either.
		It&apos;s about half a week overdue.
		I wonder what&apos;s taking so long, given that it&apos;s already had over a month to arrive.
	</p>
</section>
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